


but now i see

by PunchSystem



Series: amazing grace [2]
Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: Again, Canon-Typical Violence, Depression, Feelings, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Gender-neutral Reader, Kinda, Other, Post Resist Ending, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Reader-Insert, Resist Ending, Suicide, Survivor Guilt, deputy fucked up big time, deputy needs a fucking hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-26
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-04-28 06:36:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14443485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PunchSystem/pseuds/PunchSystem
Summary: "This our Eden." he says and grabs your shoulders, the whispers in the background get louder, they are like chants now."So, what do you think this place is foryou?"





	but now i see

It's not that you didn't try to make it.  
You had the radio on 24/7, despite the emergency broadcasting stopping on week three. No one answered your calls over Dutches Broadcasting System, not on Day one, not on Day 245. Both his and Joseph Corpses started to smell after two days, and you know it was because the heat outside was still pushing in.

So, you didn't have much choice, you used as many plastic bags you could find and wrapped them in, Dutch with his army medals he had hidden in his desk, and Joseph with a Cross you found in a storage Room. Slightly changed so it resembled the one Eden's Gate used. It was only fair, only right, not matter what he did, he gave you chances over and over, at least you should give him something as close to a proper burial you can manage. You cleaned out the smallest storage room and put them side by side, knowing you need keep that room closes from now on, hell, might even shut it airtight.  
There is lots of time to mourn now, lots of time to think. 

\------------------------

**Washington D. C is preparing to evacuate. The president has already been moved through a secure location. Meanwhile, the National Command center is deploying crisis response teams to major cities on the eastern seaboard. The department of homeland security has issued an immediate alert today. The affected regions include New York, LA, D.C and San Francisco. Montana isn't expected to be affected, but its always possible.**

_Dutch._

_You Bastard,_

_you knew it was going to happen._

He recorded everything.  
Between the hundreds of tapes, he left the last one in the recorder. The War was imminent. All Radio Broadcast was cut off for so long, no one knew how fast a couple of big idiots can fire themselves up, press a button, doom everyone.  
And no one thought all the others would press their Button too, just to take everyone down with them. 

**If our children will burn, so will theirs.**

It gave you hope. Joseph wasn't right. God wasn't here to make you pay for every life you took. And so your tears stopped, not that you had any left anymore, and you put yourself together, at least for a while.

You found a Geiger counter and a gas mask, determined to venture outside, determined to proof your worth somehow. There was no way to say how close you are to Ground Zero. The bombs that could have gone southwest of the church could have been just dirty bombs, none of them nuclear. But that begs the question:

_Why was no one out there?_

As you headed outside, everything was still dark, maybe it was night, maybe the sky was still filled with ash and black smoke, it was hard to tell between all the black that dyed the surrounding area. The trees were gone, so were the bushes. Your Geiger counter crackled too much and you didn't need to take a look on it to realize that everything was radioactive.

What wasn't already dead, will be soon.

Your best guess was that the radio antennas have been so severely damaged that nothing could come in, or out. Listening to the recorded radio broadcasts you knew that the big fishes out there had their own secure bunker. They made it. But what's the use now? They were human, just like you. No one they could control anymore. No one they had power over. Humanity will start from point zero.

The Bunkers ration would let you have eaten comfortably for over a few years, but after one you realized it wouldn't matter to you. You knew you were depressed, isolation and death all around will let the demons in your head knock louder, and astronaut ice cream only fixed so much. 

And suddenly you realized that you weren't really trying to survive anymore.

 

 _You should have burned agonizingly slow, after all you've done._ says a voice and its sounds so, so familiar. But you can't quite place it.

 

In a few months you read all the books, searched all the rooms and did everything you could do by yourself. You found a baseball and you wondered if you should name him Wilson, but you realized that even now you weren't that crazy.

Yet.

So you wrote. About everything that happened. About your family and friends you left behind, about your neighbor who gave you sour gum as a child, about the Seed Family, about history.  
What should have become.  
You blamed yourself, felt responsible, knew everything could have gone differently if you acted like a real deputy. So you wanted to know that whoever made it, whoever manages to raise their children after all this, it could have been prevented if your Ego wouldn't have been so fucking big. And after so many papers have been filled and your hand gotten tired, you talked to Dutch and Joseph, wishing for a response. For anything that made you more sane, because the shadows at night came closer, and sometimes you hear voices echoing through the bunker. It made you hide under your blanket like a scared child, and it made you beg for forgiveness when there was none. You haunted yourself in the end.

_The end._

There were many ways it should have come. Growing old with a loving partner on a Farm in Ohio. Going down in a fight where you still manage to save the life of someone innocent. Catching a bullet and waking up in the hospital, living another ten years.

But in the end it was the revolver you pressed against your head. 

You tried recounting how many days it were, but you couldn't. Memory gaps were so common to you now, some things felt like a dream, but you had the scars to prove they were real, while other you thought you knew had happend were just doubts of your own conscience. Food was still there in plenty, all of the resources seemed barley touched, making you feel slightly worse than you already do. But you couldn't stand it, you knew you fucked up in every way you could have, making you wish would have just taken the College classes in Highschool. Hell, Heaven, whatever there was, it didn't scare you anymore.

 _Nothing could be worse that this._ you tell the Voice in your head, the ghosts in this Bunker, or maybe just your own shaking hand.

So you said a final prayer, hoped if there was a God listening he forgave you your sins and that he may have mercy on your soul.  
After re-reading the letter you left on the floor, a final goodbye, hoping this bunker would give someone shelter if they needed, you put your finger on the trigger.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Breathe in.

Breath-

.

.

 

It didn't hurt. 

It could have been for seconds or eons, but in that time, nothing hurt.

But as you opened your eyes, the light was way too bright and made you get up too fast. The world was spinning for a few seconds, but as you finally managed to see clearly, standing on weak knees, you felt relief.

Or maybe it was you being anxious.

Heart racing through an invisible finish line.

They looked at you.

Joseph with his yellow tinted sunglasses and Jacob with his piercing eyes and everyone else wearing white shirts and gowns, weapons too close for your own comfort next to them. 

Faith was the first to walk towards you, not hesitant, not surprised. 

Everything in you screams to turn away and run. Run until your lungs are filled with acid and you pass out. But your legs are filled with cement and your breath trapped in your aching lungs. Time wasn't slowing down anymore, it was just you spacing out, just like you did in School before your Teacher tapped your desk loudly and the other kids laughed.

Faith is close to you now, she looks different from what she did back then. Not that you can put your finger on it, but something changed. She takes your hand and now, finally, she smiles.

"There you are." 

The smile that made your heart slow down for a few seconds, had the opposite effect when she said these words. It's like they were waiting, standing around the ruins and rocks, around bushes and tress, in each other's company. A few strays were sitting in a circle around John, probably listening to him preaching. This wasn't a campfire for boy scouts chasing themselves to bed with horrors stories. It could have been from a picture draw back in the renaissance, if it weren't to the deadly silence not even pictures gave away.

**The Lord said to my Lord,**

 

**Sit at my right hand,**

 

**until I put your enemies under your feet**

You open your mouth to ask, why and where and _what_ , but you close it again as Joseph stands up and walks over. Faith pulls you with her and you meet in the middle. You wish he smiled, because you could have sworn Jesus smiled when he met a repentant sinner, but then you realize you didn't repent.

You killed Jesus and used his blood as wine and his body for your lone feast. It doesn't matter you puked it all out after it.

Neither does he take your face in his hands and greets you; for a while nothing happens. Faith stands behind him, and you hear ushered whispers from his followers.  
His Voice is like thunder when he speaks up.  
"I told you we're going to march to Edens Gate." You are not sure if he also means you too, since you only just arrived, but something shudders deeps inside of your tired bones, making you more clear. He expects an answer, now that Jacob and John also joined behind him.  
The deafening silence in the background still scratches at the back of your sanity, not that you had all of her anyway, but it pulls and echos inside of every cell of your body and whatever is wrong, is right on the tip of your tounge, but you can't find it. You never seem to find the right things in the right time, maybe a different sin should scar on your chest.

"Yes." is all you're able to bring out. Johns lips lift upwards, Joseph comes closer.  
"I wasn't sure you would join us. But now I understand." His gaze drifts upwards before he closes his eyes. Faith comes around and grabs your hand again, she laughs, wholeheartedly, or maybe it's just a giggle, and you feel yourself drifting away, as if you watch yourself from above. You ask what now and Joseph steps back, and it turns your stomach how much you want him to touch you. To press his forehead against yours and tell you are forgiven.

"Patience, child. We have time now. So much time." 

_For what_ you ask.

Jacob comes closer now and stops before you. His followers are closing in around you two in a circle, their hands full.

"This our Eden." he says and grabs your shoulders, the whispers in the background get louder, they are like chants now. Joseph is further away now, Faith joined him closely behind again, like a loyal dog following its owner everywhere.  
_Joseph had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb_  
"So, what do you think this place is for _you_?" He grips harder and John says something to the people around you, they come closer, reaching their hands towards you, as if they want to tear you apart.

You realize a second too late,when the people start grabbing you, pushing your body down and holding it to the sacred floor, covered in flowers and soon to be guts. John holds Josephs Memento high and talks, but you are barley listening as people start pulling on your hair and your clothes and your limbs. 

"When every sin is taken from your body, you too can live in peace. But before that you need to repent and realize what you have done." Your screams are drowning out the rest of his speech and Jacob starts egging the crowd on. Warm blood trickles down from your scalp and your mouth, but you are not sure which part of your body hurts most as the Followers grab pieces of you and throw it away. It's like they are trying to find your soul and you wish you had enough power to tell them that you are sure you sold it for a few bullets once.  
_It's your hell._ the voice says inside of you and now you finally understand too.

-

-

-

-

-

The moment you close your eyes you still hear their voices for a second, but then everything is quiet and dark and _gone_.

And you awaken again, with a dizzy head and the light too unkind to your eyes. Joseph watches you again, John surrounded by their followers and Faith walking towards you.

Giggling. 

"There you are." 

_No_

You shake your head and manage to avoid her grip on your arm, she frowns. "What are you doing silly?" Again, she tries to grab a hold of your arm, but you pull away and take a few steps back.

"I told you we're going to march to Edens Gate." 

_This can't be real this can't be real this can't be real_

"I wasn't sure if you would join us." Joseph says, suddenly being way too close for comfort, nevermind that you sought it before. "But now I understand." Eyes gazing upwards, he still doesn't greet you, before he steps back again. 

"But before you can join your brothers and sisters-" he begins but you interrupt him, fists clenched, more talking to yourself than him.

**_"No."_**

Joseph eyes land on your face and you see Jacob coming towards you, a little too fast, a little too intimidating. You avoid his grip too, but your back crashes against someone else, who takes a hold of your arms. "You will regret your wrong-doings, Sinner." The man says and the others are closing in now, despite your kicking and screaming. John holds the book up in the air again, talks about cleansing one's soul, rebirthing a sinner as a saint, but as before, his voice gets lost under yours. Hoarse to soon, tears burn in your eyes and soon you notice yourself begging for forgiveness. Not to God, not even to the people you left to die, to Joseph and his flock. 

But soon the pain is too much and you closer your eyes unwillingly, barley noticing that hands leave your body.

-

-

-

-

You feel yourself sweating, standing up and seeing the same scene like before. The world spins when you stand up too fast and run into the other direction, fields filled with bliss flowers, an endless horizon that makes you feel claustrophobic. 

But someone grabs you, and you feel water beneath you when he grabs your head and you're running out of air way too soon. No speech this time, even though you notice yourself seeking the comfort for anything, _something_ that stops the silent scenery next to your gargling, before you pass out.

-

-

-

After that, you don't even try to run away anymore. Understanding the game, the rules. It takes you a while to accept you can't win when you try to fight it. You let Faith tell you she is happy to see you, Joseph that he was right, John saying that even the worst Sinners can be cleansed and you let Jacob stare you into the ground, and for some reason you wished he had more things to say to you. You start to wonder if this is maybe purgatory, and not hell. The gods couldn't decide if you did more wrong or right in life and left you in a place where the void could decide at last what you are worth. But hell seems so much more pleasant, and you know it went bad when you started craving the pain and their speeches, because feeling nothing for that amount of time between being awoke anew and hearing nothing but static in your ears was becoming unbearable.

The worst wasn't the pain, the ways the made you pay for your sins, the way that mercy wasn't an option anymore. It was the slowly realization that forgiveness wouldn't come, no matter how often John tried to scrub them off your skin, or Jacob played that sweet melody from the little music box over and over and made you kill your friends in vivid nightmares until every last inch of hope and redemption got burned out of your skull. It left you numb and aching and too much regret. You should have left the church without Joseph in handcuffs, should have stepped away when Joseph gave you one last chance. But that's all gone now, you are not even sure how much time passed between the first loop and after you stopped counting. Math was never your strong suit, after all.

-

-

The light still blinds you every time you wake up, but as always you take a deep breath, as if your lungs were filled with cigarette smoke for ages, and feel the sun warming your skin for a few moments. 

You hear children's laughter in the distance and you glance up, confused, expecting long brown hair and the slight distorted horizon made of mountains and bliss-fever. But this time, yellow tints and a scarred hand greets you. Birds chirps in the background and you can hear the wind rushing through the trees. 

Joseph offers you his hand, and it reminds you too much of back in the bunker, too long ago, too blurry to remember clearly, and you just know you want to thank him, _thank him thank him thank him._  
Because you reached salvation for the first time in your life and finally you feel clean and at peace and _holy._  


-

God was never there, but you could have sworn you met his son.

**Author's Note:**

> glad i finally finished it because that was my first idea the moment the credits rolled and i really wanted to get it down on paper  
> i know edens gate never really is said to be related to christianity, but here are still a few references to it, so i felt like it kinda fit in the whole setting somehow  
> thank you for reading and i hope someday i can write the cultist/deputy gangbang i always wanted without getting to poetic


End file.
